Ги де Мопассан
Strong as Death
He said, with a radiant air: “It is I again!” as he appeared at the threshold of the smaller drawing-room where the two ladies were working, under the pink shade of a double lamp of English metal, on a high and slender standard.
“What, is it you? How fortunate!” exclaimed the Countess.
“Well, yes. I feel very lonely, so I came.”
“How nice of you!”
“You are expecting someone?”
“No – perhaps – I never know.”
He had seated himself and now looked scornfully at the gray knitting-work that mother and daughter were swiftly making from heavy wool, working at it with long needles.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Coverlets.”
“For the poor?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It is very ugly.”
“It is very warm.”
“Possibly, but it is very ugly, especially in a Louis Fifteenth apartment, where everything else charms the eye. If not for your poor, you really ought to make your charities more elegant, for the sake of your friends.”
“Oh, heavens, these men!” said the Countess, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Why, everyone is making this kind of coverlets just now.”
“I know that; I know it only too well! Once cannot make an evening call now without seeing that frightful gray stuff dragged over the prettiest gowns and the most elegant furniture. Bad taste seems to be the fashion this spring.”
To judge whether he spoke the truth, the Countess spread out her knitting on a silk-covered chair beside her; then she assented indifferently:
“Yes, you are right – it is ugly.”
Then she resumed her work. Upon the two bent heads fell a stream of light; a rosy radiance from the lamp illumined their hair and complexions, extending to their skirts and their moving fingers. They watched their work with that attention, light but continuous, given by women to this labor of the fingers which the eye follows without a thought.
At the four corners of the room four other lamps of Chinese porcelain, borne by ancient columns of gilded wood, shed upon the hangings a soft, even light, modified by lace shades thrown over the globes.
Bertin took a very low seat, a dwarf armchair, in which he could barely seat himself, but which he had always preferred when talking with the Countess because it brought him almost at her feet.
“You took a long walk with Nane this afternoon in the park,” said the Countess.
“Yes. We chatted like old friends. I like your daughter very much. She resembles you very strongly. When she pronounces certain phrases, one would believe that you had left your voice in her mouth.”
“My husband has already said that very often.”
He watched the two women work, bathed in the lamplight, and the thought that had often made him suffer, which had given him suffering that day, even – the recollection of his desolate home, still, silent, and cold, whatever the weather, whatever fire might be lighted in chimney or furnace – saddened him as if he now understood his bachelor’s isolation for the first time.
Oh, how deeply he longed to be the husband of this woman, and not her lover! Once he had desired to carry her away, to take her from that man, to steal her altogether. To-day he was jealous of him, that deceived husband who was installed beside her forever, in the habits of her household and under the sweet influence of her presence. In looking at her he felt his heart full of old things revived, of which he wished to speak. Certainly, he still loved her very much, even a little more to-day than he had for some time; and the desire to tell her of this return of youthful feeling, which would be sure to delight her, made him wish that she would send the young girl to bed as soon as possible.
Obsessed by this strong desire to be alone with her, to sit near her and lay his head on her knee, to take the hands from which would slip the quilt for the poor, the needles, and the ball of wool, which would roll under a sofa at the end of a long, unwound thread, he looked at the time, relapsed into almost complete silence, and thought that it was a great mistake to allow young girls to pass the evening with grown-up persons.
Presently a sound of footsteps was heard in the next room, and a servant appeared at the door announcing:
“Monsieur de Musadieu.”
Olivier Bertin felt a spasm of anger, and when he shook hands with the Inspector of Fine Arts he had a great desire to take him by the shoulders and throw him into the street.
Musadieu was full of news; the ministry was about to fall, and there was a whisper of scandal about the Marquis de Rocdiane. He looked at the young girl, adding: “I will tell you about that a little later.”
The Countess raised her eyes to the clock and saw that it was about to strike ten.
“It is time to go to bed, my child,” she said to her daughter.
Without replying, Annette folded her knitting-work, rolled up her ball of wool, kissed her mother on the cheeks, gave her hand to the two gentlemen, and departed quickly, as if she glided away without disturbing the air as she went.
“Well, what is your scandal?” her mother demanded, as soon as she had gone.
It appeared that rumor said that the Marquis de Rocdiane, amicably separated from his wife, who paid to him an allowance that he considered insufficient, had discovered a sure if singular means to double it. The Marquise, whom he had had watched, had been surprised in flagrante delictu, and was compelled to buy off, with an increased allowance, the legal proceedings instituted by the police commissioner.
The Countess listened with curious gaze, her idle hands holding the interrupted needle-work on her knee.
Bertin, who was still more exasperated by Musadieu’s presence since Annette had gone, was incensed at this recital, and declared, with the indignation of one who had known of the scandal but did not wish to speak of it to anyone, that the story was an odious falsehood, one of those shameful lies which people of their world ought neither to listen to nor repeat. He appeared greatly wrought up over the matter, as he stood leaning against the mantelpiece and speaking with the excited manner of a man disposed to make a personal question of the subject under discussion.
Rocdiane was his friend, he said; and, though he might be criticised for frivolity in certain respects, no one could justly accuse him or even suspect him of any really unworthy action. Musadieu, surprised and embarrassed, defended himself, tried to explain and to excuse himself.
“Allow me to say,” he remarked at last, “that I heard this story just before I came here, in the drawing-room of the Duchesse de Mortemain.”
“Who told it to you? A woman, no doubt,” said Bertin.
“No, not at all; it was the Marquis de Farandal.”
The painter, irritated still further, retorted: “That does not astonish me – from him!”
There was a brief silence. The Countess took up her work again. Presently Olivier said in a calmer voice: “I know for a fact that that story is false.”
In reality, he knew nothing whatever about it, having heard it mentioned then for the first time.
Musadieu thought it wise to prepare the way for his retreat, feeling the situation rather dangerous; and he was just beginning to say that he must pay a visit at the Corbelles’ that evening when the Comte de Guilleroy appeared, returning from dining in the city.
Bertin sat down again, overcome, and despairing now of getting rid of the husband.
“You haven’t heard, have you, of the great scandal that is running all over town this evening?” inquired the Count pleasantly.
As no one answered, he continued: “It seems that Rocdiane surprised his wife in a criminal situation, and has made her pay dearly for her indiscretion.”
Then Bertin, with his melancholy air, with grief in voice and gesture, placing one hand on Guilleroy’s shoulder, repeated in a gentle and amicable manner all that he had just said so roughly to Musadieu.
The Count, half convinced, annoyed to have allowed himself to repeat so lightly a doubtful and possibly compromising thing, pleaded his ignorance and his innocence. The gossips said so many false and wicked things!
Suddenly, all agreed upon this statement: the world certainly accused, suspected, and calumniated with deplorable facility! All four appeared to be convinced, during the next five minutes, that all the whispered scandals were lies; that the women did not have the lovers ascribed to them; that the men never committed the sins they were accused of; and, in short, that the outward appearance of things was usually much worse than the real situation.
Bertin, who no longer felt vexed with Musadieu since De Guilleroy’s arrival, was now very pleasant to him, led him to talk on his favorite subjects, and opened the sluices of his eloquence. The Count wore the contented air of a man who carries everywhere with him an atmosphere of peace and cordiality.
Two servants noiselessly entered the drawing-room, bearing the tea-table, on which the boiling water steamed in a pretty, shining kettle over the blue flame of an alcohol lamp.
The Countess rose, prepared the hot beverage with the care and precaution we have learned from the Russians, then offered a cup to Musadieu, another to Bertin, following this with plates containing sandwiches of pate de foies gras and little English and Austrian cakes.
The Count approached the portable table, where was also an assortment of syrups, liqueurs, and glasses; he mixed himself a drink, then discreetly disappeared into the next room.
Bertin found himself again facing Musadieu, and felt once more the sudden desire to thrust outside this bore, who, now put on his mettle, talked at great length, told stories, repeated jests, and made some himself. The painter glanced continually at the clock, the hands of which approached midnight. The Countess noticed his glances, understood that he wished to speak to her alone, and, with that ability of a clever woman of the world to change by indescribable shades of tone the whole atmosphere of a drawing-room, to make it understood, without saying anything, whether one is to remain or to go, she diffused about her, by her attitude alone, by the bored expression of her face and eyes, a chill as if she had just opened a window.
Musadieu felt this chilly current freezing his flow of ideas; and, without asking himself the reason, he felt a sudden desire to rise and depart.
Bertin, as a matter of discretion, followed his example. The two men passed through both drawing-rooms together, followed by the Countess, who talked to the painter all the while. She detained him at the threshold of the ante-chamber to make some trifling explanation, while Musadieu, assisted by a footman, put on his topcoat. As Madame de Guilleroy continued to talk to Bertin, the Inspector of Fine Arts, having waited some seconds before the front door, held open by another servant, decided to depart himself rather than stand there facing the footman any longer.
The door was closed softly behind him, and the Countess said to the artist in a perfectly easy tone:
“Why do you go so soon? It is not yet midnight. Stay a little longer.”
They reentered the smaller drawing-room together and seated themselves.
“My God! how that animal set my teeth on edge!” said Bertin.
“Why, pray?”
“He took you away from me a little.”
“Oh, not very much.”
“Perhaps not, but he irritated me.”
“Are you jealous?”
“It is not being jealous to find a man a bore.”
He had taken his accustomed armchair, and seated close beside her now he smoothed the folds of her robe with his fingers as he told her of the warm breath of tenderness that had passed through his heart that day.
The Countess listened, surprised, charmed, and gently laid her hand on his white locks, which she caressed tenderly, as if to thank him.
“I should like so much to live always near you!” he sighed.
He was thinking of her husband, who had retired to rest, asleep, no doubt, in some neighboring chamber, and he continued:
“It is undoubtedly true that marriage is the only thing that really unites two lives.”
“My poor friend!” she murmured, full of pity for him and also for herself.
He had laid his cheek against the Countess’s knees, and he looked up at her with a tenderness touched with sadness, less ardently than a short time before, when he had been separated from her by her daughter, her husband, and Musadieu.
“Heavens! how white your hair has grown!” said the Countess with a smile, running her fingers lightly over Olivier’s head. “Your last black hairs have disappeared.”
“Alas! I know it. Everything goes so soon!”
She was concerned lest she had made him sad.
“Oh, but your hair turned gray very early, you know,” she said. “I have always known you with pepper-and-salt locks.”
“Yes, that is true.”
In order to dispel altogether the slight cloud of regret she had evoked, she leaned over him and, taking his head between her hands, kissed him slowly and tenderly on the forehead, with long kisses that seemed as if they never would end. Then they gazed into each other’s eyes, seeking therein the reflection of their mutual fondness.
“I should like so much to pass a whole day with you,” Bertin continued. He felt himself tormented obscurely by an inexpressible necessity for close intimacy. He had believed, only a short time ago, that the departure of those who had been present would suffice to realize the desire that had possessed him since morning; and now that he was alone with his mistress, now that he felt on his brow the touch of her hands, and, against his cheek, through the folds of her skirt, the warmth of her body, he felt the same agitation reawakened, the same longing for a love hitherto unknown and ever fleeing him. He now fancied that, away from that house – perhaps in the woods where they would be absolutely alone – this deep yearning of his heart would be calmed and satisfied.
“What a boy you are!” said the Countess. “Why, we see each other almost every day.”
He begged her to devise a plan whereby she might breakfast with him, in some suburb of Paris, as she had already done four or five times.
The Countess was astonished at his caprice, so difficult to realize now that her daughter had returned. She assured him that she would try to do it as soon as her husband should go to Ronces; but that it would be impossible before the varnishing-day reception, which would take place the following Saturday.
“And until then when shall I see you?” he asked.
“To-morrow evening at the Corbelles’. Come over here Thursday, at three o’clock, if you are free; and I believe that we are to dine together with the Duchess on Friday.”
“Yes, exactly.”
He arose.
“Good-by!”
“Good-by, my friend.”
He remained standing, unable to decide to go, for he had said almost nothing of all that he had come to say, and his mind was still full of unsaid things, his heart still swelled with vague desires which he could not express.
“Good-bye!” he repeated, taking her hands.
“Good-by, my friend!”
“I love you!”
She gave him one of those smiles with which a woman shows a man, in a single instant, all that she has given him.
With a throbbing heart he repeated for the third time, “Good-by!” and departed.
CHAPTER IV
A DOUBLE JEALOUSY
One would have said that all the carriages in Paris were making a pilgrimage to the Palais de l’Industrie that day. As early as nine o’clock in the morning they began to drive, by way of all streets, avenues, and bridges, toward that hall of the fine arts where all artistic Paris invites all fashionable Paris to be present at the pretended varnishing of three thousand four hundred pictures.
A long procession of visitors pressed through the doors, and, disdaining the exhibition of sculpture, hastened upstairs to the picture gallery. Even while mounting the steps they raised their eyes to the canvases displayed on the walls of the staircase, where they hang the special category of decorative painters who have sent canvases of unusual proportions or works that the committee dare not refuse.
In the square salon a great crowd surged and rustled. The artists, who were in evidence until evening, were easily recognized by their activity, the sonorousness of their voices, and the authority of their gestures. They drew their friends by the sleeve toward the pictures, which they pointed out with exclamations and mimicry of a connoisseur’s energy. All types of artists were to be seen – tall men with long hair, wearing hats of mouse-gray or black and of indescribable shapes, large and round like roofs, with their turned-down brims shadowing the wearer’s whole chest. Others were short, active, slight or stocky, wearing foulard cravats and round jackets, or the sack-like garment of the singular costume peculiar to this class of painters.
There was the clan of the fashionables, of the curious, and of artists of the boulevard; the clan of Academicians, correct, and decorated with red rosettes, enormous or microscopic, according to individual conception of elegance and good form; the clan of bourgeois painters, assisted by the family surrounding the father like a triumphal chorus.
On the four great walls the canvases admitted to the honor of the square salon dazzled one at the very entrance by their brilliant tones, glittering frames, the crudity of new color, vivified by fresh varnish, blinding under the pitiless light poured from above.
The portrait of the President of the Republic faced the entrance; while on another wall a general bedizened with gold lace, sporting a hat decorated with ostrich plumes, and wearing red cloth breeches, hung in pleasant proximity to some naked nymphs under a willow-tree, and near by was a vessel in distress almost engulfed by a great wave. A bishop of the early Church excommunicating a barbarian king, an Oriental street full of dead victims of the plague, and the Shade of Dante in Hell, seized and captivated the eye with irresistible fascination.
Other paintings in the immense room were a charge of cavalry; sharpshooters in a wood; cows in a pasture; two noblemen of the eighteenth century fighting a duel on a street corner; a madwoman sitting on a wall; a priest administering the last rites to a dying man; harvesters, rivers, a sunset, a moonlight effect – in short, samples of everything that artists paint, have painted, and will paint until the end of the world.
Olivier, in the midst of a group of celebrated brother painters, members of the Institute and of the jury, exchanged opinions with them. He was oppressed by a certain uneasiness, a dissatisfaction with his own exhibited work, of the success of which he was very doubtful, in spite of the warm congratulations he had received.
Suddenly he sprang forward; the Duchesse de Mortemain had appeared at the main entrance.
“Hasn’t the Countess arrived yet?” she inquired of Bertin.
“I have not seen her.”
“And Monsieur de Musadieu?”
“I have not seen him either.”
“He promised me to be here at ten o’clock, at the top of the stairs, to show me around the principal galleries.”
“Will you permit me to take his place, Duchess?”
“No, no. Your friends need you. We shall see each other again very soon, for I shall expect you to lunch with us.”
Musadieu hastened toward them. He had been detained for some minutes in the hall of sculpture, and excused himself, breathless already.
“This way, Duchess, this way,” said he. “Let us begin at the right.”
They were just disappearing among the throng when the Comtesse de Guilleroy, leaning on her daughter’s arm, entered and looked around in search of Olivier Bertin.
He saw them and hastened to meet them. As he greeted the two ladies, he said:
“How charming you look to-day. Really, Nanette has improved very much. She has actually changed in a week.”
He regarded her with the eye of a close observer, adding: “The lines of her face are softer, yet more expressive; her complexion is clearer. She is already something less of a little girl and somewhat more of a Parisian.”
Suddenly he bethought himself of the grand affair of the day.
“Let us begin at the right,” said he, “and we shall soon overtake the Duchess.”
The Countess, well informed on all matters connected with painting, and as preoccupied as if she were herself on exhibition, inquired: “What do they say of the exposition?”
“A fine one,” Bertin replied. “There is a remarkable Bonnat, two excellent things by Carolus Duran, an admirable Puvis de Chavannes, a very new and astonishing Roll, an exquisite Gervex, and many others, by Beraud, Cazin, Duez – in short, a heap of good things.”
“And you?” said the Countess.
“Oh, they compliment me, but I am not satisfied.”
“You never are satisfied.”
“Yes, sometimes. But to-day I really feel that I am right.”
“Why?”
“I do not know.”
“Let us go to see it.”
When they arrived before Bertin’s picture – two little peasant-girls taking a bath in a brook – they found a group admiring it. The Countess was delighted, and whispered: “It is simply a delicious bit – a jewel! You never have done anything better.”
Bertin pressed close to her, loving her and thanking her for every word that calmed his suffering and healed his aching heart. Through his mind ran arguments to convince him that she was right, that she must judge accurately with the intelligent observation of an experienced Parisian. He forgot, so desirous was he to reassure himself, that for at least twelve years he had justly reproached her for too much admiring the dainty trifles, the elegant nothings, the sentimentalities and nameless trivialities of the passing fancy of the day, and never art, art alone, art detached from the popular ideas, tendencies, and prejudices.
“Let us go on,” said he, drawing them away from his picture. He led them for a long time from gallery to gallery, showing them notable canvases and explaining their subjects, happy to be with them.
“What time is it?” the Countess asked suddenly.
“Half after twelve.”
“Oh, let us hasten to luncheon then. The Duchess must be waiting for us at Ledoyen’s, where she charged me to bring you, in case we should not meet her in the galleries.”
The restaurant, in the midst of a little island of trees and shrubs, seemed like an overflowing hive. A confused hum of voices, calls, the rattling of plates and glasses came from the open windows and large doors. The tables, set close together and filled with people eating, extended in long rows right and left of a narrow passage, up and down which ran the distracted waiters, holding along their arms dishes filled with meats, fish, or fruit.
Under the circular gallery there was such a throng of men and women as to suggest a living pate. Everyone there laughed, called out, drank and ate, enlivened by the wines and inundated by one of those waves of joy that sweep over Paris, on certain days, with the sunshine.
An attendant showed the Countess, Annette, and Bertin upstairs into a reserved room, where the Duchess awaited them. As they entered, the painter observed, beside his aunt, the Marquis de Farandal, attentive and smiling, and extending his hand to receive the parasols and wraps of the Countess and her daughter. He felt again so much displeasure that he suddenly desired to say rude and irritating things.
The Duchess explained the meeting of her nephew and the departure of Musadieu, who had been carried off by the Minister of the Fine Arts, and Bertin, at the thought that this insipidly good-looking Marquis might marry Annette, that he had come there only to see her, and that he regarded her already as destined to share his bed, unnerved and revolted him, as if some one had ignored his own rights – sacred and mysterious rights.
As soon as they were at table, the Marquis, who sat beside the young girl, occupied himself in talking to her with the devoted air of a man authorized to pay his addresses.
He assumed a curious manner, which seemed to the painter bold and searching; his smiles were satisfied and almost tender, his gallantry was familiar and officious. In manner and word appeared already something of decision, as if he were about to announce that he had won the prize.
The Duchess and the Countess seemed to protect and approve this attitude of a pretender, and exchanged glances of complicity.
As soon as the luncheon was finished the party returned to the Exposition. There was such a dense crowd in the galleries, it seemed impossible to penetrate it. An odor of perspiring humanity, a stale smell of old gowns and coats, made an atmosphere at once heavy and sickening. No one looked at the pictures any more, but at faces and toilets, seeking out well-known persons; and at times came a great jostling of the crowd as it was forced to give way before the high double ladder of the varnishers, who cried: “Make way, Messieurs! Make way, Mesdames!”
At the end of ten minutes, the Countess and Olivier found themselves separated from the others. He wished to find them immediately, but, leaning upon him, the Countess said: “Are we not very well off as it is? Let them go, since it is quite natural that we should lose sight of them; we will meet them again in the buffet at four o’clock.”
“That is true,” he replied.
But he was absorbed by the idea that the Marquis was accompanying Annette and continuing his attempts to please her by his fatuous and affected gallantry.
“You love me always, then?” murmured the Countess.
“Yes, certainly,” he replied, with a preoccupied air, trying to catch a glimpse of the Marquis’s gray hat over the heads of the crowd.
Feeling that he was abstracted, and wishing to lead him back to her own train of thought, the Countess continued:
“If you only knew how I adore your picture of this year! It is certainly your chef-d’oeuvre.”
He smiled, suddenly, forgetting the young people in remembering his anxiety of the morning.
“Do you really think so?” he asked.
“Yes, I prefer it above all others.”
With artful wheedling, she crowned him anew, having known well for a long time that nothing has a stronger effect on an artist than tender and continuous flattery. Captivated, reanimated, cheered by her sweet words, he began again to chat gaily, seeing and hearing only her in that tumultuous throng.
By way of expressing his thanks, he murmured in her ear: “I have a mad desire to embrace you!”
A warm wave of emotion swept over her, and, raising her shining eyes to his, she repeated her question: “You love me always, then?”
He replied, with the intonation she wished to hear, and which she had not heard before:
“Yes, I love you, my dear Any.”
“Come often to see me in the evenings,” she said. “Now that I have my daughter I shall not go out very much.”
Since she had recognized in him this unexpected reawakening of tenderness, her heart was stirred with great happiness. In view of Olivier’s silvery hair, and the calming touch of time, she had not suspected that he was fascinated by another woman, but she was terribly afraid that, from pure dread of loneliness, he might marry. This fear, which was of long standing, increased constantly, and set her wits to contriving plans whereby she might have him near her as much as possible, and to see that he should not pass long evenings alone in the chill silence of his empty rooms. Not being always able to hold and keep him, she would suggest amusements for him, sent him to the theater, forced him to go into society, being better pleased to know that he was mingling with many other women than alone in his gloomy house.
She resumed, answering his secret thought: “Ah, if I could only have you always with me, how I should spoil you! Promise me to come often, since I hardly go out at all now.”
“I promise it.”
At that moment a voice murmured “Mamma!” in her ear.
The Countess started and turned. Annette, the Duchess, and the Marquis had just rejoined them.
“It is four o’clock,” said the Duchess. “I am very tired and I wish to go now.”
“I will go, too; I have had enough of it,” said the Countess.
They reached the interior stairway which divides the galleries where the drawings and water-colors are hung, overlooking the immense garden inclosed in glass, where the works of sculpture are exhibited.
From the platform of this stairway they could see from one end to the other of this great conservatory, filled with statues set up along the pathway around large green shrubs, and below was the crowd which covered the paths like a moving black wave. The marbles rose from this mass of dark hats and shoulders, piercing it in a thousand places, and seeming almost luminous in their dazzling whiteness.
As Bertin took leave of the ladies at the door of exit, Madame de Guilleroy whispered:
“Then – will you come this evening?”
“Yes, certainly.”
Bertin reentered the Exposition, to talk with the artists over the impressions of the day.
Painters and sculptors stood talking in groups around the statues and in front of the buffet, upholding or attacking the same ideas that were discussed every year, using the same arguments over works almost exactly similar. Olivier, who usually took a lively share in these disputes, being quick in repartee and clever in disconcerting attacks, besides having a reputation as an ingenious theorist of which he was proud, tried to urge himself to take an active part in the debates, but the things he said interested him no more than those he heard, and he longed to go away, to listen no more, to understand no more, knowing beforehand as he did all that anyone could say on those ancient questions of art, of which he knew all sides.
He loved these things, however, and had loved them until now in an almost exclusive way; but to-day he was distracted by one of those slight but persistent preoccupations, one of those petty anxieties which are so small we ought not to allow ourselves to be troubled by them, but which, in spite of all we do or say, prick through our thoughts like an invisible thorn buried in the flesh.
He had even forgotten his anxiety over his little peasant bathers in the remembrance of the displeasing idea of the Marquis approaching Annette. What did it matter to him, after all? Had he any right? Why should he wish to prevent this precious marriage, already arranged, and suitable from every point of view? But no reasoning could efface that impression of uneasiness and discontent which had seized him when he had beheld Farandal talking and smiling like an accepted suitor, caressing with his glances the fair face of the young girl.
